Scepticism in Cormac McCarthy‘s Stella Maris

Abstract

In psychiatry and psychology, as well as in many other disciplines concerned with the well-being of mental patients, there is often an assumption that the problem lies solely within the patient’s mind. This assumption produces a baseless picture of the patient's situation that hides her relation to the doctor and to the world that she inhabits. Consequently, for the doctor, the patient herself becomes an impediment to a clear view of her mind. This thesis investigates Cormac McCarthy’s Stella Maris by exploring how the dialogues in the novel, along with the author’s choice to omit the third-person point of view, challenge the aforementioned assumption, and uncovers in the picture it produces a scepticism of other minds. Using the ideas of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Stanley Cavell, the picture of the patient’s mind being the sole bearer of illness is questioned. Wittgenstein’s Private Language Arguments (PLAs) deny that a private language, necessarily understood only by one user, is possible, thereby denying that language can be used for referring to private sessions. Instead, language-use should be understood in terms of its public nature and sharedness. Similarly, Cavell’s concept of acknowledgement, derived from Wittgenstein’s PLAs, provides a powerful method to evaluate situations in which knowledge of another’s mind is a primary concern, such as psychiatric and therapeutic sessions. By employing these ideas, this study advocates for a relational understanding of illness, where the patient must be understood in relation to the world she inhabits. Consequently, knowledge regarding Alicia’s illness and pain should be understood as claims upon Cohen to act rather than as references to her private sensation, or as an entrypoint to her frame of reference.